Overview

Sperm banks are complex organizing systems spanning both physical and digital realms, supporting unique and sensitive interactions for a niche user group. Sperm banks are really two different organizing systems: one to manage the physical collection of specimen (typically in the form of vials), and another to organize description or surrogate resources of each specimen. The primary objective of a sperm bank is to allow collection and storage of sperm specimen from donors, and search and retrieval by sperm recipients or health clinics acting on their behalf.

What resources are being used?

The scope and scale of a sperm bank can be large, to include donors and donations numbering in the hundreds or even thousands. Typically a sperm bank serves people and clinics within a geographical area. The nature of the resources collected is such that a high level of granularity is required in resource description assigned to each donor and each specimen collected. Organizing principles for both the physical system and digital system rely heavily (almost exclusively) upon the resource descriptions applied. Each instance of the resource must be uniquely identifiable, but can be classified into equivalence classes of donor attributes, such as ethnic heritage, genetic profile, and blood type.

The systems must allow for continual addition to the collection as new donors are added and contribute to the bank. Realistically, collected sperm specimen is not stored in the system indefinitely; however, the systems must be designed to accommodate storage over an open-ended amount of time, since the bank does not know in advance how quickly a specimen will be used or how long a person will serve as a donor. In a similar vein, records and specimens need to be properly expunged as donors withdraw from the bank or otherwise leave the system.

A sperm bank’s overall objectives of allowing storage and retrieval of sperm specimens naturally impose requirements about intentional arrangement of both physical specimens and digital records of resource descriptions. This leads to the creation of resource categories based on number and types of resource descriptions being exploited by the chosen organizing principles. Once the systems achieves enough standardization and richness in resource descriptions, the systems can employ computational processes to automatically create resource descriptions, such as from lab test data, which also facilitates search and retrieval at a later stage.

Why are the resources organized?

At minimum, sperm banks must be organized to support specimen acquisition or purchase by sperm recipients, either individual women trying to conceive through artificial insemination or fertility clinics serving such women. Sperm banks may choose to create a web-based description resource organizing system to enable online searching or “auctions.” To me, the most intriguing interaction is the online “bidding war,” where potential sperm recipients bid on donors who market their genes with self-descriptions such as “Good at math and science!” or “Tall and athletic.” I have been told that the competition is fierce, and users have to act quickly if she sees a suitable donor, else the inventory might deplete and the donor might exit the auction.

Lastly, fertility treatment is an emotionally charged procedure requiring its information systems to support sensitive and context-appropriate interactions; for example, some women may want to choose donors who physically resemble their husbands or partners, but the women may not actually want to see photos of the donors. Hence, the overarching goal of the digital organizing system should be to enable retrieval of donor information while respecting delicate and highly individualized preferences on access and privacy.

How much are the resources organized?

All donors undergo rigorous review and testing before they are selected to contribute to a sperm bank. Information collected about every donor includes: medical history, ethnic lineage, genetic history, family history, professional/educational background, inventory of physical characteristics, even personality evaluations. The classification scheme of the organizing system is explicitly prescribed and predetermined at the design stage of the system. When making choices about the underlying technology supporting the digital organizing system, the system designer must make trade-offs between using a strict schema to ensure standardization in information collected, and possible future or incremental changes in description vocabularies and classification schemes, resulting in possible database schema changes.

When are the resources organized?

Sperm banks are continuously organized as new resources become part of the collection. The organization is never “just in time” since it does not make sense to defer organization until retrieval. The information collected on donor attributes determines the categories a particular specimen would belong to, or collocation requirements of a physical specimen unit. It is possible to devise a faceted classification scheme to enable search by facets. Organization also includes ongoing evaluation of resource descriptions to ensure consistency and adherence to the established schema.

Who does the organizing?

Organization is performed by staff members of the sperm bank, under rigorous protocols for classification and storage. Staff members are trained to handle this sensitive data and to ensure that the systems comply with both privacy laws and design objectives to support sensitive and context-appropriate interactions. To meet this goal, the systems can remove or reduce individual authority in the human beings doing the organizing by employing a strict controlled vocabulary, predefined forms, and tag suggestions for resource descriptions.

Retrieval of information in the description or surrogate organizing system can also be a computational process that filters results by a user’s requirements. Staff members will need to periodically refine and maintain the search algorithms and computational processes as the system collects data over time on users’ query patterns and search terms.

Other considerations

System designers also need to be mindful of potential growth in collection size, which may impose a requirement on current technological or implementation decisions. At minimum, there should be a continuity plan in place in the event of natural disasters or other obstructions to business functions.